Washington Square: (A Modern Library E-Book)
“Mr. Morris Townsend.”
This was what she heard, vaguely but recognizably, articulated by the domestic, while she hesitated. She had her back turned to the door of the parlor, and for some moments she kept it turned, feeling that he had come in. He had not spoken, however, and at last she faced about. Then she saw a gentleman standing in the middle of the room, from which her aunt had discreetly retired.
She would never have known him. He was forty-five years old, and his figure was not that of the straight, slim young man she remembered. But it was a very fine presence, and a fair and lustrous beard, spreading itself upon a well-presented chest, contributed to its effect. After a moment Catherine recognized the upper half of the face, which, though her visitor’s clustering locks had grown thin, was still remarkably handsome. He stood in a deeply deferential attitude, with his eyes on her face. “I have ventured—I have ventured,” he said; and then he paused, looking about him, as if he expected her to ask him to sit down. It was the old voice; but it had not the old charm. Catherine, for a minute, was conscious of a distinct determination not to invite him to take a seat. Why had he come? It was wrong for him to come. Morris was embarrassed, but Catherine gave him no help. It was not that she was glad of his embarrassment; on the contrary, it excited all her own liabilities of this kind, and gave her great pain. But how could she welcome him when she felt so vividly that he ought not to have come? “I wanted so much—I was determined,” Morris went on. But he stopped again; it was not easy. Catherine still said nothing, and he may well have recalled with apprehension her ancient faculty of silence. She continued to look at him, however, and as she did so she made the strangest observation. It seemed to be he, and yet not he; it was the man who had been everything, and yet this person was nothing. How long ago it was—how old she had grown—how much she had lived! She had lived on something that was connected with him, and she had consumed it in doing so. This person did not look unhappy. He was fair and well-preserved, perfectly dressed, mature and complete. As Catherine looked at him, the story of his life defined itself in his eyes; he had made himself comfortable, and he had never been caught. But even while her perception opened itself to this, she had no desire to catch him; his presence was painful to her, and she only wished he would go.
“Will you not sit down?” he asked.
“I think we had better not,” said Catherine.
“I offend you by coming?” He was very grave; he spoke in a tone of the richest respect.
“I don’t think you ought to have come.”
“Did not Mrs. Penniman tell you—did she not give you my message?”
“She told me something, but I did not understand.”
“I wish you would let me tell you—let me speak for myself.”
“I don’t think it is necessary,” said Catherine.
“Not for you, perhaps, but for me. It would be a great satisfaction—and I have not many.” He seemed to be coming nearer; Catherine turned away. “Can we not be friends again?” he asked.
“We’re not enemies,” said Catherine. “I have none but friendly feelings to you.”
“Ah, I wonder whether you know the happiness it gives me to hear you say that!” Catherine uttered no intimation that she measured the influence of her words; and he presently went on, “You have not changed—the years have passed happily for you.”
“They have passed very quietly,” said Catherine.
“They have left no marks; you are admirably young.” This time he succeeded in coming nearer—he was close to her; she saw his glossy perfumed beard, and his eyes above it looking strange and hard. It was very different from his old—from his young—face. If she had first seen him this way she would not have liked him. It seemed to her that he was smiling, or trying to smile. “Catherine,” he said, lowering his voice, “I have never ceased to think of you.”
“Please don’t say these things,” she answered.
“Do you hate me?”
“Oh no,” said Catherine.
Something in her tone discouraged him, but in a moment he recovered himself. “Have you still some kindness for me, then?”
“I don’t know why you have come here to ask me such things!” Catherine exclaimed.
“Because for many years it has been the desire of my life that we should be friends again.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why so? Not if you will allow it.”
“I will not allow it,” said Catherine.
He looked at her again in silence. “I see; my presence troubles you and pains you. I will go away; but you must give me leave to come again.”
“Please don’t come again,” she said.
“Never? Never?”
She made a great effort; she wished to say something that would make it impossible he should ever again cross her threshold. “It is wrong of you. There is no propriety in it—no reason for it.”
“Ah, dearest lady, you do me injustice!” cried Morris Townsend. “We have only waited, and now we are free.”
“You treated me badly,” said Catherine.
“Not if you think of it rightly. You had your quiet life with your father—which was just what I could not make up my mind to rob you of.”
“Yes; I had that.”
Morris felt it to be a considerable damage to his cause that he could not add that she had had something more besides; for it is needless to say that he had learned the contents of Doctor Sloper’s will. He was, nevertheless, not at a loss. “There are worse fates than that!” he exclaimed, with expression; and he might have been supposed to refer to his own unprotected situation. Then he added, with a deeper tenderness, “Catherine, have you never forgiven me?”
“I forgave you years ago, but it is useless for us to attempt to be friends.”
“Not if we forget the past. We have still a future, thank God!”
“I can’t forget—I don’t forget,” said Catherine. “You treated me too badly. I felt it very much; I felt it for years.” And then she went on, with her wish to show him that he must not come to her this way, “I can’t begin again—I can’t take it up. Everything is dead and buried. It was too serious; it made a great change in my life. I never expected to see you here.”
“Ah, you are angry!” cried Morris, who wished immensely that he could extort some flash of passion from her calmness. In that case he might hope.
“No, I am not angry. Anger does not last that way for years. But there are other things. Impressions last, when they have been strong. But I can’t talk.”
Morris stood stroking his beard, with a clouded eye. “Why have you never married?” he asked, abruptly. “You have had opportunities.”
“I didn’t wish to marry.”
“Yes, you are rich, you are free; you had nothing to gain.”
“I had nothing to gain,” said Catherine.
Morris looked vaguely round him, and gave a deep sigh. “Well, I was in hopes that we might still have been friends.”
“I meant to tell you, by my aunt, in answer to your message—if you had waited for an answer—that it was unnecessary for you to come in that hope.”
“Good-bye, then,” said Morris. “Excuse my indiscretion.”
He bowed, and she turned away—standing there, averted, with her eyes on the ground, for some moments after she had heard him close the door of the room.
In the hall he found Mrs. Penniman, fluttered and eager; she appeared to have been hovering there under the irreconcilable promptings of her curiosity and her dignity.
“That was a precious plan of yours!” said Morris, clapping on his hat.
“Is she so hard?” asked Mrs. Penniman.
“She doesn’t care a button for me—with her confounded little dry manner.”
“Was it very dry?” pursued Mrs. Penniman, with solicitude.
Morris took no notice of her question; he stood musing an instant, with his hat on. “But why the deuce, then, would she never marry?”
&nb
sp; “Yes—why indeed?” sighed Mrs. Penniman. And then, as if from a sense of the inadequacy of this explanation, “But you will not despair—you will come back?”
“Come back? Damnation!” And Morris Townsend strode out of the house, leaving Mrs. Penniman staring.
Catherine, meanwhile, in the parlor, picking up her morsel of fancywork, had seated herself with it again—for life, as it were.
THE MODERN LIBRARY EDITORIAL BOARD
Maya Angelou
·
Daniel J. Boorstin
·
A. S. Byatt
·
Christopher Cerf
·
Shelby Foote
·
Vartan Gregorian
·
Larry McMurtry
·
Edmund Morris
·
John Richardson
·
Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
·
William Styron
·
Gore Vidal
THE MODERN LIBRARY - A LIST OF CURRENT TITLES
The Education of Henry Adams
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Modern Magic·
DANTE ALIGHIERI
Inferno
Purgatorio
Paradiso
ERWOOD ANDERSON
Winesburg, Ohio
RICHARD BURTON
The Arabian Nights
ARISTOTLE
Introduction to Aristotle
ST. AUGUSTINE
The City of God
JANE AUSTEN
Emma
Mansfield Park
Northanger Abbey
Persuasion
Pride and Prejudice
Sense and Sensibility
The Complete Novels Vol. I: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park
Vol. II: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion
JAMES BALDWIN
The Fire Next Time
Go Tell It on the Mountain
RICHARD BAUSCH
The Selected Stories·
MONROE C. BEARDSLEY, EDITOR
The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche·
DANIEL J. BOORSTIN
The Daniel J. Boorstin Reader·
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Jane Eyre
EMILY ËRONTE
Wuthering Heights
THOMAS BULFINCH
Bulfinch’s Mythology
JACOB BURCKHARDT
The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy
EDWIN A. BURTT, EDITOR
The English Philosophers from Bacon to Mill·
TRUMAN CAPOTE
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
In Cold Blood
A Christmas Memory, One Christmas, & The Thanksgiving Visitor
WILLA CATHER
Death Comes for the Archbishop
My Ántonia
RAYMOND CHANDLER
The Big Sleep & Farewell, My Lovely·
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
The Canterbury Tales
ANTON CHEKHOV
Longer Stories from the Last Decade·
KATE CHOPIN
The Awakening and Selected Stories
COLETTE
My Mother’s House & Sido
CONFUCIUS
The Wisdom of Confucius
JOSEPH CONRAD
Nostromo
Youth, Heart of Darkness, Typhoon
STEPHEN CRANE
The Red Badge of Courage
CHARLES DARWIN
The Origin of Species
DANIEL DEFOE
Moll Flanders
CHARLES DICKENS
American Notes
A Christmas Carol and Other Stories·
Our Mutual Friend
A Tale of Two Cities
EMILY DICKINSON
The Selected Poems
ISAK DINESEN
Out of Africa
Seven Gothic Tales
E. L. DOCTOROW
Ragtime
JOHN DONNE
The Complete Poetry and Selected Prose
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
The Best Short Stories of Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
THEODORE DREISER
Sister Carrie
W.E.B. DU BOIS
The Souls of Black Folk
ALEXANDRE DUMAS
The Count of Monte Cristo
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Ideas and Opinions
GEORGE ELIOT
Middlemarch
RALPH ELLISON
The Collected Essays·
Invisible Man
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Selected Writings ·
FREDERICK EXLEY
A Fan’s Notes
WILLIAM FAULKNER
Absalom, Absalom!
Go Down, Moses
Selected Short Stories
Snopes (The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion)·
The Sound and the Fury
RICHARD FEYNMAN
The Character of Physical Law
HENRY FIELDING
Tom Jones
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
This Side of Paradise
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT
Madame Bovary
SHELBY FOOTE
The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign·
Stars in Their Courses: The Gettysburg Campaign·
E. M. FORSTER
A Room with a View & Howards End
SIGMUND FREUD
The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud·
The Interpretation of Dreams
EDWARD GIBBON
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I, Volume II, Volume III
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Sorrows of Young Werther and Novella
NIKOLAI GOGOL
Dead Souls
GRAHAM GREENE
The Quiet American
LORRAINE HANSBERRY
A Raisin in the Sun
THOMAS HARDY
The Collected Novels Vol. I: Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge
Vol. II: Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure
The Return of the Native
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Complete Novels and Selected Tales Vol. I: Fanshawe, Twice-Told Tales, Mosses from an Old Manse, The Scarlet Letter
O. HENRY
The Best Short Stories
VICTOR HUGO
Les Misérables
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
JANE JACOBS
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
HENRY JAMES
The Wings of the Dove
WILLIAM JAMES
The Varieties of Religious Experience
THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Life and Selected Writings
SARAH ORNE JEWETT
The Country of the Pointed Firs and Other Stories
JAMES JOYCE
Dubliners
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Ulysses
C. G. JUNG
The Basic Writings
FRANZ KAFKA
Selected Short Stories
IMMANUEL KANT
The Philosophy of Kant
JOHN KEATS
Complete Poems
TRACY KIDDER
The Soul of a New Machine
LAO-TZU
Te-Tao Ching
D. H. LAWRENCE
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Sons and Lovers
A. J. LIEBLING
Between Meals·
The Road Back to Paris
NORMAN MAILER
The Executioner’s Song
SIR THOMAS MALORY
Le Morte d’Arthur
THOMAS MANN
Death in Venice & Seven Other Stories
Doctor Faustus
The Magic Mountain
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sp; CARSON MCCULLERS
The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
The Piazza Tales
JOSEPH MITCHELL
The Bottom of the Harbor
Joe Gould’s Secret
NANCY MITFORD
The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate
LADY MURASAKI
The Tale of Genji
ALBERT MURRAY
South to a Very Old Place
V. S. NAIPAUL
A Bend in the River
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Basic Writings·
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
FRANK NORRIS
McTeague
JOHN O’HARA
Appointment in Samarra
The Novellas of John O’Hara·
A Rage to Live
EUGENE O’NEILL
Nine Plays
DOROTHY PARKER
The Poetry and Short Stories
PLATO
Symposium
PLUTARCH
The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Volume I, Volume II
EDGAR ALLAN POE
The Collected Tales and Poems
V. S. PRITCHETT
A Cab at the Door & Midnight Oil·
MARCEL PROUST
IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME
Vol. I: Swann’s Way
Vol. II: Within a Budding Grove
Vol. III: The Guermantes Way
Vol. IV: Sodom and Gomorrah
Vol. V: The Captive & The Fugitive
Vol. VI: Time Regained and A Guide to Proust
JOHN REED
The Collected Works·
RAINER MARIA RILKE
Ahead of All Parting·
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Hunting Trips of a Ranchman & The Wilderness Hunter·
LILLIAN ROSS
Picture
PHILIP ROTH
Goodbye, Columbus
JAMES SALTER
A Sport and a Pastime
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Ivanhoe
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
The Comedies
The Histories and Poems
The Tragedies
MARY SHELLEY
Frankenstein
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Complete Poems
ADAM SMITH
The Wealth of Nations
ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN
Cancer Ward
GERTRUDE STEIN
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas
STENDHAL
The Red and the Black
LAURENCE STERNE
Tristram Shandy & A Sentimental Journey
BRAM STOKER
Dracula
HARRIET BEECHER STOWE